The lid is so close to my face and chest that my hands can reach down only to my thighs. I’m wearing some kind of short skirt? I must reach farther, must keep trying. I have to get out, whatever it takes. I twist to my right hip, use the ankle restraints as resistance to wiggle my body lower, reach down with my left hand. My shoulder and face drag against the coffin’s smooth lid, pulling at my cheek and nose and closed eye, but even then my fingers barely touch my knees.
I must pull harder, harder, I must keep fighting, must get out of the darkness. If I can’t reach my feet, I will die here alone and screaming and— —my fingertip brushes the rough bars pinning my ankles. So close, just a little farther. Contorted muscles and twisted bones vibrate with pain as I wedge in even tighter, but finally my left hand grips a bar. Grab and shake and yank, must get loose…
Crack, crack—both feet come free.
I slide up the coffin until I am again flat on my back. I press my palms against the lid.
I push: it doesn’t budge. I’m not strong enough.
Think. THINK. You have to get out….
I need to use my arms and my legs, use all of me….
I twist and turn until I’m lying on my stomach. There isn’t enough room to get all the way to my hands and knees, but I push down as hard as I can while I arch my back against the lid. Sweat drips into my eyes. Sweat and maybe blood. I press until my back screams…
…something in the lid snaps.
A sliver of blinding light hits the bed of my coffin, so bright it burns to look at it. I close my eyes and push even harder. I feel the lid lift, just a little, enough for me to slide my knees all the way beneath me.
(Attack, attack, when in doubt, always attack, never let your enemy recover.)
I take a breath, focus, and shove upward with everything I have left.
The shuddering complaint of something bending and tearing. At the end of the fight, the strong lid breaks like a brittle shell—I am up and out and standing…
…and falling.
I land hard, kicking up a thick cloud of something powdery. My heaving lungs suck it in. The floor spins and whirls beneath me, and there is light everywhere, so bright it stings even through clenched eyes.
Lying on my side, I blink, trying to see. I cough, trying to breathe. I wait for my eyes to adjust, hoping they do before whoever locked me in the coffin comes to put me back inside once again.
TWO
The light blinds me, makes my eyes water. Grainy dust on my tongue, coating my raw throat, so deep in my lungs it makes me cough again and again. The noise might bring the people who did this to me, but I can’t stop. I can’t see, I’m too weak to move.
I am helpless.
The coughing fit eases. My body relaxes enough for me to sit up. I pull my knees to my chest, wrap my arms tight around my legs. I rub my wrists; the rough bars ripped my skin raw.
My coffin was warm. I broke it open, hatched from it, and now I’m in this cold room. I’m shivering. I’m out, yes, but alone, exhausted and terrified.
Where are my mom and dad? Why aren’t they here? Where is here, anyway?
I smell things I don’t fully recognize. Dry odors, stale scents. This place smells…dead.
The light still stings, but not as much. I can finally see a little.
Gray. The dust is gray. It blankets everything, hangs in the air, floating specks that spin with my every breath.
My neck throbs where that thing bit me. I reach for the spot. A shirt. I’m wearing a shirt, and a tie. I slide my hand inside the collar, feel the wound…my fingers come away with a pasty mix of dust and blood.
I look at what I’m wearing: white button-down shirt, the short skirt—which is red and black plaid—black socks that end a bit below my knee, no shoes. My shirt feels tight. The sleeves end halfway between my elbow and wrist. The tie is red, embroidered with a yellow and black circle of tiny images. White thread in the middle of that circle spells a word: MICTLAN.
I have no idea what that means. And these clothes…are they mine?
My vision is blurry; I can’t see anything but my coffin. Sitting on the dusty floor, I’m too low to look inside it. The lid split evenly down the middle, from top to bottom. The half closest to me slid neatly against the side. The far half sticks straight up. Maybe I broke that half, bent something so it can’t move like it’s supposed to.
Parts of the lid gleam under the lights—bloody finger streaks, I realize, from where I grabbed it, wiping away the thin layer of dust that clings to the surface.
Why won’t someone come and help me?
The thing that bit my neck…what if it’s still alive? What if it’s in the coffin, coiling, getting ready to slither out and attack me again? I don’t want to look inside, but no one else is here and I need to know it’s dead.
If I don’t, it could hunt me.
I reach for the coffin’s edge, use it to pull myself up. My legs don’t want to work. They tremble and twitch as I rise and look inside.
White fabric, torn in many places, smeared with long streaks of wet red and a few light spots of powdery crimson. Loose padding shows beneath the rips.
A bloody, white pillow. Next to it, a limp, white snake.
No, not a snake: a tube.
A tube that ends in a long, glistening needle. Its white skin is torn where I bit it, showing some kind of black fibers beneath.